"I think there is no doubt about it. All the fugitives that come in say that the Khalifa will fight, but whether it will be in the defence of Omdurman, or whether he will come out and attack us at Kerreri, none can say. The Khalifa keeps his intentions to himself."
"By the bye, Hilliard, I don't think you know my right-hand neighbour; he only joined us an hour before we started, having been left behind at Cairo, sick.
"Mr. Hartley, let me introduce you to Mr. Hilliard--I should say Bimbashi Hilliard. He is on General Hunter's staff."
The young lieutenant placed an eyeglass in his eye, and bowed to Gregory.
"Have you been in this beastly country long?" he asked.
"If you include Lower Egypt, I have been here eighteen years."
"Dear me!" the other drawled; "the climate seems to have agreed with you."
"Fairly well," Gregory replied. "I don't mind the heat much, and one doesn't feel it, while one is at work."
"Hartley has not tried that, yet," one of the others laughed. "Work is not in his line. This most unfortunate illness of his kept him back at Cairo, and he brought such a supply of ice with him, when he came up, that he was able to hand over a hundredweight of it to us when he arrived. I don't think, Major, that in introducing him you should have omitted to mention that, but for a temporary misfortune, he would be the Marquis of Langdale; but in another two years he will blossom out into his full title, and then I suppose we shall lose him."
Gregory, whose knowledge of the English peerage was extremely limited, looked puzzled.